Don’t Have CRM Yet? 5 Signs You Need It

You might be wondering whether you need a CRM system. Well, the answer is quite simple. If your company sells products or services to customers, you have a need for CRM. You've probably heard the old saying, "what got you here won't get you there." The same lesson can be applied to an evolving business. During the startup phase, you might have gotten by with Excel spreadsheets or something similar to keep track of customer orders and inquiries.
Yet, as your business has grown, so has its complexities. You not only need to manage customer orders, but you also need to monitor revenue and even the sales cycle. Any business that has experienced growth will have experienced growing pains. Still, how do you know when you need a CRM? Here are five signs telling you that it's time for a CRM system.

You Can't Find Relevant History When You Need It Most

Have you ever been on a call with a customer, they asked a question, and you had to spend over an hour searching for an answer? Do you really think today's tech savvy customer has time for that? They can easily head over to your competitor who has the tools to stand out in a hyper-connected world.

When it comes to customer information, that last thing you want is the data scattered in different places. You've got a post-it note here, an Excel spreadsheet there and multiple outlets filled with disconnected customer information. The problem is the information is separated. As a result, you can't make strategic decisions.

In order to maximize sales effectiveness, you need to capture data at every stage of your customer life cycle. How can you get a complete picture of your customer relationships when you have different employees tracking customer interactions in varying ways? This is how you know you need a CRM system to simplify your data by allowing customer-facing employees to store and access information from one central repository.

You no longer have to piece together spreadsheets, notes and emails just to determine a particular customer's history. Plus, you can quickly access important sales and management reports.

You Forget Things

If you don't send out invoices, you won't get paid. As a result, you won't be able to pay your bills and keep the business going. If you don't offer renewals on time, then you can lose out on a key piece of your business. If you're not using a CRM system, you are losing data.

There just isn't a more efficient way for keeping your data organized. How do you remind yourself to send an invoice or renewal? A CRM system can do that for you automatically. In addition, your CRM system can show you which customers need more attention.

You Are Lost If You Are Out Of Your Office

Since we do live in a hyper-connected world, it is easy to work from anywhere, at any time. Yet, that won't be the case without a CRM system. If your sales team needs to attend a conference, how will they keep up with customer information without having to go to the office?

Your sales reps need to stay up-to-date while on the go. They may get valuable information while out on the field, but if they have to take notes elsewhere, they can only share it when they're back at their work spaces. With a CRM system, you can enter information in real time - from anywhere. This means there is a decreased risk of losing any information.

This is especially true with mobile CRM advantages, such as the ability for your sales reps to access the system from any device. Moreover, it really isn't that difficult to pick out the right CRM for your company with these guidelines.

You Are Overwhelmed By Your Daily Routine

If you spend more time searching for data than attending to customers, you know you need a CRM. When it comes to Excel vs. CRM, there is a clear winner here. In an ideal world, you want consistent sales reports that show your progress against your quota.

How long does it take you to manually determine how many leads you have processed in the last week, month or year? Which of your sales reps is the most productive? What is the length of your sales cycle? All of this data needs to be understood, but it is just too overwhelming to do it manually.

As your business gets larger, you need sales processes that are scalable. At this point, you're probably starting to understand why you need CRM software. Problems often start when you have manual processes that are inconsistent across your sales and marketing team. If you only have five leads coming in per day, then it might be fine to use a spreadsheet. But, if you have more than 20 coming in daily, you need something more advanced.

You don't want to hire new people, only to have them quit because they are frustrated with manual and inefficient processes. They want to get more leads, but they can't even accurately track the ones they already have. Perhaps you have one rep storing information in their phone and another writes it down. With this type of inconsistency, there is no visibility for managers or anyone else. When your company is growing, you need more streamlined processes and clear policies.

Plus, if your salespeople leave, they can easily take their contacts and information with them. A CRM system stores all the data on one platform so that you have visibility over your leads and sales cycle. Then, you have access rights so that if anyone leaves, you still have the data for someone else to use.

Learn how the CRM in Bitrix24 provides a platform to organize and track interaction with potential or existing clients, partners, agents and other contacts here.